Joan Uhl holds up a laminated copy of the last email she received from her son Eugene Uhl III. Eugene died in an Army helicopter crash in Iraq in 2003.

Written by

Kevin Lu
| Stevens Point Journal Media

Joan Uhl got the news while she was sitting bedside at the hospital after her husband had a heart attack.

"My head was like it was spinning; I couldn't believe it," said Uhl, 59, an Amherst resident. "It was like I was sleeping and couldn't wake up because it was like a bad dream."

Uhl's sister, Barbara Gollnow, and five others were killed when a semitrailer truck rear-ended their SUV on March 2 while driving through Kentucky on their way back from Orlando. It's the most recent in a long history of heartbreaking deaths Uhl has endured. ...